Friday, 29th March 2024

Comments


Penhale event

Access to the exciting terrain of the dunes at Penhale gets ever more challenging with the MOD land remaining out of reach and the holiday camp now developing the touring caravan area which we have used for parking for many years. I must thank Roger Hargreaves for successfully negotiating access for this event and for the initial planning of the courses until it became apparent that the only date available was when he was on holiday. Luckily Richard Bown stepped in to take over as Controller and Annabel as Organiser allowing me to take on the planning.

Being based in the holiday camp makes the planning of junior courses relatively easy and does require a change in approach for everyone else as they progress from the fast and simple terrain of the camp to the complex dues beyond. Any area used as much by the general public always causes a concern for controls moving but everything went smoothly in no small measure due to the enthusiastic work of the club members who helped on the day: Thank you. Personally I am particularly grateful for the work of Mark Bown in checking and waking up the controls before the courses opened.

Graham Pring - Planner


Lanhydrock Night event

It was convenient that after controlling the day event at Lanhydrock the previous weekend that I had some ideas for the night event. There were three controls the same as the day event but it was dark! Sort of apologies to the green course runners that the tree guard at 227 was missing, so the post was rather visible.

Thanks to Elsie who helped roll out controls in the dry afternoon and to Barry, Chris and Ivor for collecting the controls after everyone had finished.

A decent turnout on a damp night.

Roger Hargreaves - Planner


Polly Joke

Thanks to all those that came to Polly Joke to compete today.Great to see some new faces. Chris Moncaster did a great job planning the courses. With Barry Olds as controller.

I would especially like to thank those who volunteered to help run the event. Dick Smith, Graham Pring and Gavin Henderson. Also the non running helpers Elsie and Roger Hargreaves, Pauline Olds and the control collectors at the end.

Thanks to Jeanie and Richard Bown for Organizing the tea tent. Finally Steve Beech for sorting out the online entry system, website, flyers. Much appreciated.

Ivor Marshall - Organiser


Lanhydrock

Orienteering events have been held at Lanhydrock for more than 25 years, often more than once per year, but I can't ever remember courses visiting the area of forest between the river and railway before. I always try to find a new area to take you if I can and I couldn't resist using this when I visited it and found it rather good! Unfortunately only Brown and Blue courses could reach it and the course shape had to be rather awkward to get into it, but I hope you enjoyed it. The other courses had the usual blend of fast but simple parkland interspersed which more technical woodland areas requiring more careful navigation.

I would like to thank my Controller, Steve, and Organiser, Annabel for their hard work. Also Richard for helping me put controls out and the team who collected them all for me; this was most appreciated.

Graham Pring - Planner


Tremough Campus

Who would have thought it? Just back from a long field trip in Scotland ready to do the final checks on the control sites and the Planner, Ian Ashton, goes down with COVID. So a last-minute combined effort by Ian [masked and gloved] put out controls on Saturday evening assisted with logistics by Elsie and Roger.

Sunday was glorious - many Entry On The day - and the usual suspects. All done and dusted by 2pm.

Thanks Ian - who still has COVID!!

Hardhead

Hope you all enjoyed your courses over a very interesting and complex area, but apologies to those who had 197 on the east side of Carburrow Tor which looked great from an armchair, but unfortunately was situated in a very dense area of bracken. Other than that, it was fantastic to see so many people out enjoying the sport they love and a big thanks to all the Kerno members who helped out on the day.

Phil Newall - Planner


Hooray! Our first event since February and the weather was perfect. The systems we introduced to enable the event to go ahead seemed to work reasonably well. Any feedback for improvements welcome.

So thank you all for coming and making it such a success.

One of the benefits of using moorland areas is that they don't change much so Phil Newall was able to plan his courses without visiting - he simply used control sites that had been used in previous events. As it was a level D event we weren't too bothered about having a controller.

Ivor Marshall volunteered to put out the controls on the Saturday afternoon and John Moody and I just checked on the Sunday that they were all in the right place. This arrangement did mean however that one control and a couple of routes were not ideal.

The only hiccup came when, on Saturday morning, we received a complaint from a member of the public (via email) that he thought we were being irresponsible, contaminating gates and stiles etc, and that he would contact the police. We did consider calling the event off but decided that we were acting within the guidelines. (This was confirmed in an email from the police.) However, Ivor was worried that the controls might be interfered with so decided to only put out the stakes on Saturday. He then got up at who knows what time on Sunday morning and went round once again fitting all the SI boxes. An absolute hero. Very many thanks.

Also thanks to Roger Hargreaves for controlling the car park, the Kerno members on start finish and download, and to the landowners for their co-operation.

Steve Beech


Hustyn

The main problem with planning at Hustyn is that the 2 nicest areas are separated by the steep valley, and neither area is quite big enough. And then there are the bike tracks which come and go.

For my first attempt this year I did try something different which included a longish walk to the start and a finish down in the valley. The complications were could we get the toilet anywhere close; what would the weather be like for a long walk; and the final straw was trying to have the Orange course cross the stream safely. So it was back to the drawing board.

I decided to give the courses that went across the valley some longer legs which offered more options for route choice (and as a by-product reduced the number of controls that needed to be put out). Talking afterwards it was obvious that many different choices were made.

Many thanks to Barry Olds for controlling again and to Ivor Marshall for organising, with special thanks for arranging to get the toilet down near registration. If that can be done for a future event then the possibility of having start and finish somewhere totally different is on the cards.

Steve Beech - Planner


Idless

Idless is under constant change with a motorbike Enduro event in October creating numerous new tracks - I still didn't catch up with all of them. However I did find, as I reviewed the map, some new features. It was also somewhat muddier than previous years.

My planning principle for this event was to explore how many route choices could be created. Idless doesn't lend itself to that but I hope some of the legs made you think about which way you would tackle the leg.

Thanks to Simon Freer for Controlling - his first in that role as a new controller - and he did find my mistakes.

Chris Moncaster did a grand job Organising and interacting with the 60+ students from Truro School.

Lastly thanks to Elsie Hargreaves for helping place controls and Saturday afternoon and running Registration all say on Sunday. Thanks too to Phil Newall to was happy to be the ASK ME front-man and i/c parking while he recovers from recent surgery. All the other helpers and control collectors had a run but thanks to these volunteers too - we couldn't do this without you all.

Roger Hargreaves - Planner


Lanhydrock

Thank you to everyone who came to Lanhydrock regardless of the foreboding weather forecast. I hope our courses lived up to expectation! Graham’s experience as controller was invaluable as always.

An especial thank you to Roger, Ivan, Will, Bernie, Graham and the Newall’s who helped gather in the controls as the light faded.

Richard Bown - Planner


Despite the changeable weather and the delays caused by the horse riding event all ran smoothly. Many thanks to all the helpers and we had a good turnout in a great area. Thanks to Richard for planning and Graham for controlling. An extra thank you to Jeannie, Elsie, Beryl and Sue who all helped but did not run.

Annabel Pring - Organiser


Lanhydrock is one of Kerno's most popular areas and deservedly so because it has a wide range of terrain to provide interest and challenge to competitors: the parkland providing fast running but requiring accurate bearings due to the many features; the varied patches of woodland; the intricate terrain in the woods by the river requiring very careful navigation; and of course the hills. (The difference in altitude between the top and bottom of the area is 120m, in case you didn't notice). Richard's excellent courses included all of these with plenty of controls to keep your mind off the climb.

Many of you were affected by the late start for which we apologise. Just a couple of weeks before the event the National Trust realised that they had two bookings for the 8th December which initially appeared incompatible; our event with runners going all over the place and a horse riding event including some young inexperienced riders. By cooperating together both were able to take place safely, but this did mean that we had to wait until the last riders had left the competition area.

Many thanks to all the volunteers who helped us to put on the event under Annabel's efficient organisation, without whom of course it could not have taken place.

Graham Pring - Controller


Trelissick

Thanks to Phil for planning this event . He made it easier for me to organise with the start and finish being close to the registration area. Thanks to all my helpers for making this event run smoothly.

Most people will remember Charlie’s Angels . My Angels are way better namely: Elsie Hargreaves, Elizabeth Brunyee, and Pauline Olds, for coming along to orienteering just to help out in the registration tent. Thank you.

Thanks also to Rod Allday for controlling and everyone else for supporting our event. Trelissick is a really nice location and I hope everyone had a good time.

Ivor Marshall - Organiser


Trelissick is always a bit of a challenge to plan around as due to the linearity of the Creekside forests, the shape of the courses is often set before you even start! Nonetheless, I tried to give a bit of variety this year, and thanks to Neil Stephenson, the trust Ranger, for opening up the short cut from the Parkland as this allowed even some of the shorter courses to see a bit more of the estate.

Things were compounded somewhat during planning in that I had damaged my knee a few weeks earlier and am scheduled for a knee operation on the 21st November (as I write this in fact!). This meant putting out the controls was a bit of a challenge and painful, especially as Adele was away, but I got there in the end.

My controller, Rod Allday, was very accommodating and between us I think we did a good job and this seemed to be borne out by the positive comments.

In the end, the courses appeared to be about the right length/climb ratio as indicated by the times, but as usual, Trelissick can only muster a TD4 standard at best, although I think the slippery slopes in places might have made up for the lack of technical difficulty.

A big thanks goes out to the usual folks and although headline map sales were not huge, it was good to see a lot of new people and groups having a go for the first time, and hope that we see some of you at Lanhydrock in a couple of weeks.

Phil Newall - Planner


Thanks to Phil for putting on some courses which made the most of the rather restricted area – with Pill Farm not available it didn’t leave much scope for the longer courses. Trelissick is always a nice area for an event and the weather was particularly kind to us, with clear views from the parkland down Carrick Roads to Falmouth. Finishing times were about right and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. Phil was struggling with his knee injury but still managed to place all of the controls – including doing a lot of them in the dark on the previous evening! I hope the op goes well Phil and that you’re soon back to full fitness.

It was good to see some newcomers and I hope they enjoyed it sufficiently to come along again.

Thanks are due to Ivor for his organization and everyone who helped on the day.

Rod Allday - Controller


Truro School

What a turnout!! The weather helped but good to see visitors from WAOC and SO too. The Norwegian format is usually used in training - as some of the older competitors remembered but there it is usually used without the comfort blanket of a map - or one even with controls marked on it.

Had I presented the courses to you with all the connecting lines - there would have been confusion - hence take the lines off and show the next leg at each control.

Generally it worked well if you listened to the instructions!! Or looked for the coloured card.

Thanks to Barry for a prompt turn-round of results and thanks as always to Elsie who helped with the assembly of the kit and together we rolled out the courses on a beautiful sunny morning - and then she hid in the shade and collected all the ££.

Thanks also to Truro School for letting us use their facilities.

Roger Hargreaves - Planner


Hustyn

The main problem with Hustyn is that the 2 areas best suited for orienteering are separated by the steep valley, so that incorporating both areas tends to increase distance and/or climb. For this year my first attempt had registration and finish down in the valley but that had to be abandoned as it would have been difficult to arrange for the toilet to have been delivered anywhere useful. Maybe next time we can show those of you who do the shorter courses what the other side of the valley is like.

The other difficulty is that the brambles are spreading and this year's mild winter hasn't helped. I hope you aren't too scratched. And please check for ticks - I had to remove one when I got home.

My guide for planning the length of courses was the event we held there 2 years ago, but looking at the results it seems I could have made them a bit shorter. Hustyn is such a physical area although the moss is really nice underfoot.

My thanks to Barry for his help and apologies to Ivor who ended up manning the finish all day - having the finish a long way from registration is not ideal but it did help to reduce the climb on the courses.

Steve Beech - Planner


Poldice

Planning at Poldice is always a challenge, as although there are plenty of good control features, the area is quite small and relatively straightforward (no TD5 level controls).

The last time I planned here, I had a taped route across the paths that connect the North and South areas (not ideal), and this year I wanted to avoid this. Also, due to the layout of the area, in previous events, the shorter courses had not had a chance to run in the detailed North area as we had always started in the South.

So, the idea was born to have the Start in the North and the Finish in the South to give everyone the opportunity to see a bit more of what is a really interesting historic mining area.

The downside to this was that we could not secure parking anywhere in the north and thus had to walk competitors in from the Raceway (thanks to them for allowing us to use it), but I hope none of you found this too arduous.

From a planning standpoint, the end result was quite pleasing in that the longer courses were in effect “Long Middle Distance” with many controls and lots of direction changes. Winning time on the Brown was as expected quite quick (40 minutes by a UK Squad member), the other courses in line with normal Forest League events – I hope you enjoyed them.

Unfortunately, the day was marred by the vandalism to Control 191 which was common to all courses and located on the corner of a ruined barn which unbeknownst to us had someone sleeping in it! Apologies if this spoiled anyone’s run, but the times have been adjusted accordingly.

Thanks all again for coming, to Adele for helping me put the controls out and Barry for Controlling – a good team effort!

Phil Newall - Planner


Dunmere Night

After losing Cardinham to felling the design philosophy of the Dunmere event was to get the area back up and running after 6 fallow years. This entailed extensive trips to the woods to correct things, notably to map and trace the motorbike trails. Were they well received? Well hmmmm!

In terms of courses distances were determined using past night events at Hustyn. I wanted winning times in the region of 35 minutes, so barring some errors from the top runners this panned out about right. The other consideration was to make the event as simple as possible to put on, with the competition packed into an area around half a mile square.

Thanks to those who turned out to support us on a foul night and to those who gathered in controls after. Apologies for any confusion caused by the labelling of the common control, it’s not always easy to anticipate every flaw! Thanks to Bernie as well for his help and the horse box!

Will Hancock


Craddock Moor

The usual default for Craddock Moor at the end of February would be fog with horizontal rain/hail/snow. The courses were planned with the default in mind - poor visibility makes Craddock Moor a very different beast. In planning the courses I also tried to keep the number of controls to a minimum, again anticipating potential issues with the weather and getting them out on the day.

With the number of others on the moor because of the good weather, I was worried that we might lose some of the controls, but fortunately this didn't happen, but it does seem that 220 was vandalised early on. Unfortunately, although it was restored to an upright position, it ended up being in the wrong feature (a pit adjacent to the large, deep depression where it should have been) and as a consequence was much more visible than intended. I decided in the end to leave it where it was so as not to disadvantage one group of competitors over another.

John Moody - Planner


Idless Night

Firstly thanks to Elsie for carrying control kit around the woods with me on Saturday afternoon - she followed that up by be admin centre for the evening.

My apologies for the misplaced control which affected both jade and green courses. I had the control in the right place on the ground where I wanted it to be but the circle on the map was on a parallel feature about 25m up the hill.

I had spent several hours across 4/5 days looking at the path network and trying to rationalise what's there - a mixture of tracks from motorcycle Enduro events along with mountain bikers creations and innumerable dog walkers paths. I had also deliberately left out the "follow tapes to finish" as there was very little room left for an additional control circle!

And the pub was welcoming too - 17 people made it to the apres-O.

Roger Hargreaves


Penhale South Night

Firstly thanks to Elsie Hargreaves for helping out with the admin at the night event. Secondly thanks to you all for coming along and thirdly someone wrote out the registration form using a CD cover as a hard surface o and left the CD behind. Just contact the website and we;ll sort out something to get it back to you.

I used the planning from the last daytime event as the basis of the course with a bit of tweaking - judging from Phil Newall's time it was about a km too short - but other runners might have taken a very long time. The weather was just about ideal.

Lastly thanks to Phil, Adele, Graham, Will, Ivor and Barry for collecting all the kit in at the end.

Roger Hargreaves


Lanhydrock

The point about planning an Orienteering event is that it is the same effort whether 40 or 140 people turn up. The courses, controls and map go through many iterations to ensure a quality end product is delivered. So on a day like today, when many new faces turn up and embrace the adventure it makes all the effort worthwhile. It also gives a feeling of gravitas to the shorter courses to see a good field. Many thanks to all of you who turned out and gave it a go, please do come again soon, either to Perran Sands next Saturday if you fancy a run after dark, or to Minions on Bodmin Moor on February. Apologies for anyone who couldn’t run the course they wanted – the mass entry meant we ran out of maps.

In terms of the philosophy of the courses the quest of the Planner is to always offer something different. This is challenging at an area at Lanhydrock which is so familiar and much constrained with the development of the MTB trails. This is what drove me to include the very southern extremity of the map on the Blue and Brown. Personally I love the wild feel of that area, but I recognise it is a bit Marmite given its physical nature. Thanks for persevering if it wasn’t your cup of tea, and apologies too for the error in the crag control description. Whilst many people were out running for a long time the winning time by Ben on Brown suggests the course distance was about right. And of course for all you course planning gurus you will know the distances of all other courses follow! So I think I followed the rules correctly, but whether the rules are right is another thing!

Finally I must thank Steve for his sensitive controlling and helping tweak and manipulate my initial courses. A second pair of eyes is always useful as the initial burst of enthusiasm for planning wanes. Also a big mention to Bernie in his first stint as Organiser who did an excellent job rallying the organising troops, and handled a mass entry with ease. And finally thanks to all the Kerno stalwarts who supported the event as ever. Orienteering is very much a quality volunteer produced product, and without them we would have nothing!

Will Hancock - Planner


I'm always impressed by Will's ability to come up with something a bit different at Lanhydrock and I hope you enjoyed the challenge. We were both relieved that there has been little rain lately as it allowed the boggiest areas to dry a bit and the streams were no longer raging torrents. There was just the one minor mistake on the control descriptions that I failed to pick up. Apologies for that.

Overall the controlling task was straightforward thanks to Will's relaxed efficient approach.

Steve Beech - Controller


Truro Urban

To fill a gap in the club calendar I offered to plan an Urban event in Truro. What does that entail - well, the Truro map originally created by James Hargreaves some years ago needed an update. For the juniors there was no option in the City so the decision to map Boscawen Park was mooted. That took a couple of weeks work of surveying and drawing. Permissions were needed from Truro City Council to run in Victoria Gardens and on the Park. Truro Cricket Club were very accommodating in allowing us access to their site and opening a couple of gates for us. The Scout Hut, shared with the Canoe Club, was a helpful facility.

I couldn't have done much of what was rolled out over the weekend without mentioning the role Elsie played - morale support, bag carrier, control collector as well as filling in with volunteering during the day. Thanks too to Ryan for stepping in to be the Organiser for the day and had to juggle with a less than an optimal number of volunteers. Thanks to the volunteers - and Steve Beech, Hannah Jenkins and Elizabeth Brunyee who didn't run.

The number of runners was a disappointment but not entirely unexpected - however, there was at least one runner on every course.

Apologies need to be offered to runners trying to get to 222 via the Peoples palace alley - the gate at the end was locked - it hadn't been the two previous Sundays. The same applies to control 186 just in the market back entrance - that too had been opened the previous two Sundays!!

One competitor on the blue course suggested that we should re-examine the leg from 199 to 222 to take account of the locked gate. That leg has therefore been excluded from the final results.

Roger Hargreaves - Planner


Mt Edgcumbe

Thanks to John Moody's new map, it was possible to find a few control sites which had not been used before. One competitor was kind enough to say that my course had led him into a part of Mount Edgcumbe where he had never been before.

Working with Graham and Annabel was a pleasure.

Ken George - Planner


Davidstow Moor

Davidstow Moor is not the easiest place to plan an event. The dearth of usable features in the northern part of the map inevitably leads to using sites that have been used for previous events.

The southern part of the map and particularly Buttern Hill is much more interesting and challenging but unfortunately can only be reached on the Brown & Blue courses and to some extent on Green.

Winning times were perhaps on the short side but reflects the fast nature of the terrain and little climb on the Northern part of the map.

My thanks to Rob Parkinson, the Controller, for his help and guidance leading up the event and on the day.

I apologise for those competitors who had to wait for a map to be re-cycled from a previous competitor. I based the print runs on our previous Galoppen on Craddock Moor but evidently this was insufficient. A lesson learnt for future events.

As usual Ivor Marshall was an excellent Organiser and he even had the energy to collect the 4 distant controls on Buttern Hill.

Thanks go the control collectors Pauline & Barry Olds, Phil & Adele Newall, Steve Beech and Rob Parkinson.

Peter Morton - Planner


Davidstow Moor is fast and open, which can make it difficult to construct technical courses if the visibility is good, which it was on Sunday. At this time of year the moor is drying out, but purple moor grass has barely started growing, so Peter planned a range of courses that gave runners an opportunity to really stretch their legs! The winning times on Blue and Green were quicker than anticipated, but on the other courses were as expected. The event was very efficiently organised by Ivor, supported by many willing volunteers. The release of a group of cattle from a field near control 194 (used by the Yellow and Orange courses) at the start of the event caused some consternation, but the animals soon dispersed. And this was the first time I have come across sea anglers at an orienteering event!

Despite the cool windy conditions, it was good to see more than 100 orienteers enjoying their run, and the refreshments afterwards. One of the highlights of the day was seeing the Offroad Rodents finishing after more than two hours out on the moor hunting controls on the Brown course!

Rob Parkinson (Devon) - Controller


Penhale South

It was a disappointing turnout on Saturday but thanks to all those who did turn up. The planning philosophy was slightly different this time with an emphasis on legs rather than sneaky control sites. Although some of you thought that some of the control sites were sneaky! However with many courses having a leg of about a kilometer and a route through the caravans it seems that route choice was important. We couldn't do anything about the ground conditions - it was more wet than Planner or Controller have ever seen it.

Adele masterminded the organisation ably assisted in those early hours by Pauline and Elsie.

Thanks to all the helpers on the day and Barry, Richard, Mark and Ivor for collecting controls. Also thanks to Jeannie Bown and Sue Boyt who stood in for various gaps in the helpers rota.

Roger, Barry & Adele - Planner, Controller and Organiser


Davidstow Night

The last time I planned a night event here we had 14 competitors. A hacked and unusable computer meant I could not get at the map. But as we had more maps left over after the last event I used them for an exact repeat of the event. Only two returned to redo the green course, but more on the jade. We had two parties of first-timers who all got round OK and a total of 23 competitors. Lovely weather all day turned to steady rain for the event and a lot of muddy puddles in places. Total cost for the event - £2 - for photocopying the map! Someone had rehung the 1st control higher than I had left it - or was it a pony in the night? Thanks to Steve Beech for finding us and bringing and manning the computer.

Arthur Boyt - Planner/Organiser


Poldice

Great orienteering around the Poldice valley! Such a great way to explore the mining heritage that has left its mark on the somewhat martian looking landscape. Thankfully the weather forecast was kind and the hail downpours managed to evade us.

Huge thanks to everyone that helped at Poldice, especially to the non runners Roger and Elsie Hargreaves and Jeannie Bown.

With this being the first event I have organised, I was somewhat worried how the day might pan out, but it was great to hear such positive comments from competitors. Thanks also to Gavin Henderson for guiding me through the process of organising.

Ryan Hichens - Organiser


Lanhydrock

On the day the weather was perfect and we had an excellent turn-out. Graham had set good courses making the best use of the slightly restricted area that we are now working with. It rained all day on Saturday, so Graham deserves extra credit for putting out the controls in the woods. Will Hancock and Jeannie joined Graham and myself on Sunday morning to put out the rest of the controls and re-check everything. Annabel led the organisation so that everything ran smoothly. Thank you to all our helpers and to all the competitors for coming and enjoying Lanhydrock in the sun.

Richard Bown - Controller


Mt Edgcumbe

This event went very well, apart from the mysterious disappearance of the cane, kite and (worst of all) the electronic box at control no. 224. Can anyone throw any light on this? It seems to have happened between 1300 and 1400.

Otherwise, it was enjoyable. Heavy showers had been forecast for the afternoon, but fortunately they did not materialize. Many competitors may not have realized that the map was new, and that John had put in a vast amount of work compiling it, partly from Lidar data. His courses were interesting, in that they did not use the northern part of the map; just as well, because there was another event taking place there, which we did not know about until late on in the planning process.

Thanks to everyone who helped, especially John and Peter.

Ken George - Controller


Many thanks to David Marshall, business development manager for Mount Edgcumbe House and Country Park, for facilitating this event. Thanks also to all the club helpers, particularly those that didn’t run - Jean Bown, Sandy Cowan, Elsie and Roger Hargreaves and Sue Morton.

2 items of lost property: A lunch box and a pair of black gloves (lost at Saturday’s might event).

Peter Heywood - Organiser


Craddock Moor

This was an event that tested my Planning resolve in several ways. Firstly coming near the end of summer there was always another bike ride to do, or task to do at home or in the garden. So I was glad for Steve’s gentle prompts about the course planning. Then with a couple of weeks to go we went out on site, where we probably spent a couple of hours investigating the first 5 controls. Not the speedy progress I hoped for! Indeed that day in the field was truncated by bad weather (a portent of what was to come!) and so I was indebted to Steve for making a further site visit which included some map corrections. In the run up to the event, with talk of decaying Hurricanes threatening domesday conditions Steve and I both succumbed to seasonal viruses. So when we convened in the car park on Saturday evening to put out the remote controls Steve’s question was “Is this wise?” which given the gathering gloom and rain probably wasn’t! However this early start was essential to ensure the event took place. Finally the weather on the day wasn’t exactly ideal either!

The philosophy of the technical courses was to focus on short legs as there isn’t much scope for long route choice at Craddock Moor. Of course everything was built on an Elite runner turning up and romping round a Brown, which gave courses which appear long on a day like Sunday! In hindsight I feel we could have offered a “Wet Weather” set of courses, dispensing with White and Yellow and Brown which would have made the effort getting the event on more proportionate to the number of competitors who turned up. Given the extended finishing times I doubt anyone would have felt short changed!

I would estimate that in all I spent close to 50 hours on this Event. Once again this highlighted to me the excellent product we consistently offer. Compare the entry fee to more commercial offerings! The workload is always made more worthwhile when new faces turn up, have a go and go home satisfied. Despite the weather this happened, so thanks to all competitors for getting round and giving favourable reports at the end. Thanks are due as always to Steve for his sensitive guidance and support, particularly on the Orange course which went through multiple iterations. Also a big shout out to all the club stalwarts who made a long day just a little easier, and to Ivor who was his usual unflappable self – he even collected in the remote Tregarrick Tor controls despite not running, really appreciated.

Will Hancock - Planner


Controlling events when they are threatened by bad weather conditions is quite stressful. Is there a point at which you have to cancel? How late can you leave the decision? It's not just the safety of competitors but also that of the helpers.

In the end we carried on and despite the testing conditions we were heartened by the comments from competitors.

Using the camping field at Cheesewring Farm - thanks to John & Lynn - does slightly restrict the planner's options, but, as usual, Will managed to create interesting courses.

Steve Beech - Controller

Many thanks to all my helpers on the day, Roger Hargreaves, Barry Olds, Phil and Adele Newall, Sandy Cowan, Ryan Hichens, Annabel Pring.

For arriving early to help with putting up the tents Jeannie and Richard Bown. Time seems to go fast when you're getting set up.

Thanks to Elsie Hargreaves, Pauline Olds, and Graham Pring for stepping in at short notice to help out.

Finally to Will for giving up so much of his time to plan this event. Thanks is too small a word for the amount of work done.

Ivor Marshall - Organiser

Camborne Campus Urban

There are advantages and disadvantages, the former outweighing the latter, with Organiser and Mapper/Planner being a married couple; although after 47 years we are getting on quite well! Lots of work in the same household – the dining room became a substitute store.

We watched the increasing numbers on Fabian with some concern – how were we going to fit 200 runners into a 75-minute start window? EOD? Surely most unlikely but we had a few and some decided that the legs had been used enough in the afternoon so at the end of the event we saw over 160 competitors tackle the campus.

As we anticipated the times were going to be quite quick but the sub 20 minutes for the longest course was exceptional. Well done.

There were some glitches with control descriptions and even portions of the map but no one seemed to notice too much.

We were very grateful to the College Staff for their generous assistance throughout the preparation up to and at the event itself.

And lastly we need to thank our volunteers without whom we couldn’t have run the event;

The Tent: Barry and Pauline Olds on Download, Melanie Elkington [OD] on Dibbers, and Sue Morton and Elizabeth Brunyee on Registration. Pauline deserves extra thanks for tutoring the team.

Car Parking: Ian Hargreaves, Will Hancock and Rod Allday

The Start Team: Ryan Hichens, Hannah, Sarah and Philip Jenkins [SWOC] Ali White, Scott Collier, Ann Edwards [TVOC], James Hargreaves [BOK], Ian Hargreaves and Rod Allday Christine Vince for putting together the start list which worked extremely well.

Photographer; Mark Lockett, whose photographs are accessible elsewhere.

And before the rain came, just – darkness had fallen for the collection team of Janine Doggett, James Hargreaves, Will Hancock and Ian Hargreaves.

And the Controller – Steve Beech, who pitched in at all times. Thanks from us.

Elsie and Roger Hargreaves - Organiser and Planner

Caddihoe

Hayle events

Was it wise to control two events on successive days when Hayle is a long way from the Quantocks? Certainly the owner of the B&B could not understand why someone would get up so early, miss a full English breakfast and go out at dawn onto the dunes for two days in succession.

The two days provided very different events – the Middle (Planner Phil Newall) was fast and furious in late summer sunshine and the most common comment at download was ‘I really enjoyed that’, the Long on Hayle Towans (Planner Richard Bown) in early autumn rain, wind, drizzle and eventually mist/fog was a stark contrast with the most common comment ‘hmmmh – that was challenging’.

These differences were reflected in the spread of winning times. On most of the Middle courses the winning times of 30 – 40 minutes were as expected and not many competitors took longer than an hour. However on the Long there was a very wide spread of times – some of the top competitors, who made none or very few mistakes, were much faster than expected despite the conditions. A few competitors took more than 3 hours, but even they said they enjoyed it !

Did everything run smoothly – no (does it ever?).

The overnight storm trashed the registration/enquires/first aid and download tent and much of the material within it. Despite this and with little sleep for some of the officials the only impact on the competitor was the loss of the start lists for the start officials. With a punching start this loss was overcome and I hope few of the competitors were inconvenienced. In light of the circumstances I hope the competitor who expressed his displeasure at the start will now reconsider what he said.

Lesson learnt for all club organisers using start lists – laser print on waterproof paper?

There were anxious moments at download on Day Two with the extended time taken by some competitors and by one competitor who failed to download and drove home. Fortunately a phone number was found and a call made to confirm their safety.

Lesson learnt for all – ALWAYS download, preferably before you change into dry clothes, have lunch, etc. then the likelihood of forgetting is reduced.

If I had sleepless nights my main concern was due to the complexity of the terrain to ensure that the controls were exactly in the place as indicated by the circle on the map. Fortunately with an updated map and modern GPS technology, which improves day by day, I could sleep peacefully.

Despite the hiccups – well done KERNO.

Finally, repeated thanks to the competitor who found the Controller's iPhone at control 13 on his Middle course and handed it in at registration – from then on it was hung round the Controllers neck!

Steve Robertson QO - Controller Middle and Long

Truro School

Apologies for the mix up on the placement of 214 and 215, no excuses. Thank you all for coming to round off the Summer Series in fine style.

Thanks to Chris for bringing all the BBQ kit; Pauline for sourcing all the food and Ryan who did all the cooking.

Also thanks to Elsie for placing and collecting controls and handling all the days admin and to Sandy Cowan for collecting controls.

Roger Hargreaves - Planner


Redruth Urban

Thanks to everyone who attended the Redruth urban event on Sunday which was very well attended (over 40 people). Feedback was generally good, although I had clearly underestimated the actual lengths of the Medium and Long courses (over 7km and over 11km I think) – apologies to anyone who suffered unduly.

I managed to do a quick update of the map for this year, but clearly one or two areas do not have the detail that competitors might like. Nevertheless, I tried to plan courses to give people a chance to see some of the more interesting parts of Redruth and quite a few of you got to cross a main rail line on foot – a slightly strange experience!

A big thanks to Adele for helping me put the controls out and to Barry, Graham, Ryan, Steve Eastley and Roger for control collection. I think everyone was ready for food at the Newall BBQ afterwards.

Phil Newall - Planner


Bowithick

I have always liked the atmosphere of Bowithick ever since camping there with Scouts many moons ago. There is something captivating about the blend of spectacular morning views, archaeological remains and the more recent extensive mining artefacts. So when asked to plan the Summer Event I leapt at the chance.

I wanted to trial an event Graham first provided me with several years ago. I know some orienteers dislike a Score event, particularly when it is based upon two loops of the same area. So the time limited line course seemed to offer something different. It took careful planning with multiple iterations before I was content that sufficient options were on the table. Judging by the many kind comments and feedback buzz yesterday many of my preconceived permutations were used, together with many others! If you have any thoughts on route choice and strategy please do join the discussion over on our Facebook page.

The course length of 12 km was determined on the basis of Ben Chesters turning up, hopefully to almost get all controls. In the event he didn’t, but Grey came very close. Well done! Indeed Team Grierson had storming runs with Flurry coming a close second and Dulcie not far down. My hunch was a good Kerno runner might score 20 so very well done to Adele and Chris for their storming runs. Elsewhere it was great to see others enjoying the format, and in particular to those new orienteers having a go for a first time on such a stunning day. Brilliant, thanks for coming it makes all the effort worth while. Thanks to Steve who also manned the start, and the control collectors; Barry, Ivor and Arthur who saved me a task at the end of a long day.

Finally I must apologise for any slight glitches with the map. There are some ambiguities with the mapping of boulders, meaning I wouldn’t normally use them, but in some cases they were necessary to get the course to flow. Hope it didn’t mar anyone’s enjoyment too much. One last thing – there is likely to be a summer evening re run of the event, so watch the website for that. Oh and a final, final point someone lost a compass yesterday – it will be at Redruth for safe return.

Will Hancock - Planner


Hardhead

In many ways Hardhead Downs is an easy place to plan because of the plethora of control sites to use. The downsize is that it is very hard to achieve meaningful route choice on any legs. The solution is to have short legs with constant changes of direction to ensure competitors are navigationally challenged. From the generally favourable comments I received I think I achieved this.

The weekend was made difficult for me personally as I was suffering from a tooth abscess and a lack of concentration due to the antibiotics I was taking. On Saturday my wife Sue was a great help on placing many of the controls, but I ran out of energy on Sunday, so thanks to the many Club members who came to my aid particularly in helping with organising the Start & Finish and to Richard Bown who placed the smiley faces on the Yellow course. Thanks also to Arthur Boyt for checking all my tags.

Finally it was great to have more competitors this year than last and to see so many new younger faces.

Peter Morton - Planner


Trelissick

An excellent turn out yesterday for a very busy weekend for the National Trust. We have to thank them for letting us hold our event on their grounds. Thanks to Neil, their Ranger, for unlocking gates and looking after us. Thanks too, to Hannah assisted by Ryan who planned the event; it seems simple enough to plan 9 courses but to get the right levels of technical and physical difficulty takes some doing.

The expected sunny day didn't quite materialise until I got home. Thanks also to those club members who helped with the event but did not run - Elsie Hargreaves, Pauline Olds and Sue Morton.

Roger Hargreaves - Organiser


Hustyn

Planning an orienteering event is really an exercise in quality control. Firstly time in the forest examining the map and making the inevitable updates to account for recent storm damage (extensive!). Then in producing the courses which go through many iterations before the final product is delivered. And then in revisiting the forest to mark and check the control sites for fairness. By way of illustration I estimate this whole process took me around 30 hrs, together with further insight from Steve with surveying and independent checks.

This process is what delivers quality events, and in my eyes makes orienteering real value for money. It shows the true value of a volunteer led sport, and I can honestly say I enjoyed contributing some time back into the sport. I am indebted to Steve for his sensitive overseeing of the whole process, and for providing inspiration when I rather ran out towards the end of the process!

So to the courses! We were hoping to ring the changes and start from the far end of the forest to make use of different terrain on the shorter courses. What put paid to this idea was the Short Green course which requires technical, but not overly physical terrain. So with that it was back to the future with the usual familiar assembly and start/finish area. For the more technical courses the intention was to hit you hard from the start with intense short sharp legs before heading into a more route choice offering mid course. As you were on your last legs(!) towards the end the intention was to return to the zig zag approach in order to induce errors. Talking to some of you the courses had the desired effect!

Apologies to those of you who suffered confusion from the multiple bike tracks that it is just impossible to represent on the map. They are an ephemeral beast and it may be better to remove them entirely, but then what would we do for the shorter courses? Apart from that I feel the courses went as anticipated. Aside from that I must express my thanks to Ivor and his efficient team of helpers. He even brought a cake, and returned my kit to the store, result! All that remains beyond this is to say see you all again at Trelissick in April, it was most gratifying to see several new faces along, do please come again.

Will Hancock - Planner


Will and I both know Hustyn very well and are familiar with all the potential control sites so the main task was in assembling them into suitable courses. The final courses were not too dissimilar from Will’s first iteration, although we did try some wild variations in between. Perhaps we’ll manage to use a different area for the start next time.

On the day everything went smoothly and even the weather was kind to us.

Steve Beech - Controller


Big thanks to all my volunteers for helping on the day: Chris Moncaster, Phil & Adele Newall, Peter Morton, Angus Mccubbine, Barry & Pauline Olds, Gavin Henderson, Stephen & Hilary Eastley, Annabel Pring, and Sue Boyt.

Also for all the work they did to put on this event: Steve and Will.

Ivor Marshall - Organiser


Poldice

What a great event! We were really lucky with the weather, dry, not too cold, although very wet underfoot following a deluge of rain in the preceding few days. Gavin had done an excellent job sorting out the car parking at United Downs Raceway which meant that everything was very compact, although a bit of a muddy walk to the start!

Dave Peel had produced a very accurate new map of this small area which was rich with industrial archaeology including capped shafts, chimneys, mine buildings and many old waste dumps. In addition, the areas naturally divided into a North and South area, with the shorter courses restricted to the South area only.

Due to the size of the area, I firstly decided to run the event at 1:7,500 and secondly to saturate the area with controls (I had to use every control that Kerno owns!) so that I could get long enough distances for the Blue and Brown courses. The end result was a Classic distance event that probably felt more like a Middle distance.

The shorter days meant that I had to put all the North controls out in the dark on Saturday night (a great little area for Night “O”?), and then out again at dawn to complete the South area. White and Yellow courses took a long time to sort out and many smiley faces were used – in the end, all for 4 competitors.

However, overall the whole day went off without issue and a big thanks must go to Adele for helping me with the Planning/Controlling role and Gavin for organising. As usual, the Kerno regulars* did a stalwart job in ensuring that the event ran like clockwork and the 70+ folks who ventured out had nothing but praise which helps to make it all worthwhile.

In terms of the participants, it was great to see so many Devon members as well as some new faces. Winning times were all in the right time guidelines, although the majority of runners were probably out for a bit longer than they were used to due to the steep and rough terrain in some areas.

Helpers* Barry and Pauline Olds, Annabel and Graham Pring, Ivor Marshall, Roger and Elsie Hargreaves, Steve Eastley, Richard and Jeannie Bown, Hannah Jenkins and Ryan Hichens Bernard Pullen, Mike Beadel, Peter Morton, Rod Allday and Steve Beech.

Phil & Adele Newall - Controller/Planner

Mt.Edgcumbe

Many thanks to everybody that helped on the event, particularly those that helped but did not run, namely Elsie and Roger Hargreaves, Sue Morton, Richard Smith and Sue Boyt.

We had a total of 71 runners, which is heartening for officials - particularly Ken George, the planner and John Moody, the controller, who got thoroughly wet putting out controls and checking them on Saturday and Sunday. Although they got wet, we were quite lucky with the weather during the event in that it wasn’t windy, it was relatively warm and we even had a few moments of sun. Winter conditions at Mount Edgcumbe could have been much more challenging.

Apologies for the absence of loose control descriptions. As far as I’m aware, everything else went smoothly.

Peter Heywood - Organiser

Penhale South

The event was moved to Penhale South from Hayle due to the latter being embargoed in anticipation of it being used for the South West Long Distance Championships as part of the Caddihoe weekend in September 2017.

Planning for Penhale, under Controller Roger Hargreaves’ eagle eye, proved relatively straightforward using the free Purple Pen planning software. A few map corrections were needed due to a new fence and works. Forty controls were used and these were set out on the Saturday afternoon with some of them being used for the night event that evening. Unfortunately, Storm Angus blew through overnight and trashed some of the more exposed controls but these were reinstated by Roger ahead of the first starts.

The area provides ideal courses for all abilities. There was no shortage of permutations for the junior courses using the extensive track and road network through the holiday park. The dunes provided plenty of technical challenge as did the transition into the blocks of caravans and rapid changes of direction on the longer courses. I did try and provide as much route choice as possible on these courses – low risk path following or direct routes requiring constant reference to the map. Finishing times were close to guidelines although I overestimated the amount of climb on the longer courses expecting runners to take the straight line option rather than meandering through the dunes.

Thanks to all who helped collect the controls at the end of the day. Also thanks to Nick Cooke at Perran Sands Holiday Park for facilitating access to the area, Jon Cripps at Cornwall Wildlife Trust for providing us with advice on new fencing and environmental issues in the area and finally to Naomi Stratton at English Nature for allowing orienteering access to the Penhale Sands SSSI.

Chris Moncaster - Planner

Craddock Moor

We were blessed with excellent conditions, great courses and an ideal new assembly area right on the edge of the moor providing shelter, good parking, flush loos and homemade refreshments. The only thing that was missing were the control descriptions and a finish flag - my apologies for leaving both on my desk at home.

It was pleasing to see so many competitors from afar drawn by the Galoppen. It was also encouraging to see so many youngsters navigating confidently around the moor, especially from Devon and Torquay Grammar School.

Many thanks to the team that helped out on the day and kept things running smoothly – Elsie, Annabel, Pauline, Jeanie, Richard, Graham, Roger, Barry, Gavin, Bernard, Ivor and to Steve Beech for arranging the venue and liaising with the Commoners. The very positive comments about the courses were a testament to Pete Morton’s planning and Nicholas Maxwell’s controlling.

Thanks also to Cheesewring Farm for the use of their facilities, the Duchy of Cornwall and the Manor of Rosecraddoc as landowners, and St Cleer and District Commoners for allowing us to use this beautiful area.

Our next event is a night epic on Saturday 19 November followed by a Forest League run on Sunday 20 November at Penhale South (Perran Sands). I hope to see you there.

Chris Moncaster - Organiser

Polly Joke

Once the squally showers had passed through most of the day was bright and sunny. Parking by the tumulus is challenging especially mixing with the dog walkers. Thanks are due to Planner Gavin Henderson who placed all the controls on the morning of the event and Barry Olds who controlled - just catching Gavin on his last circuit placing controls - all by 0930hrs.

We were pleased to host the day as a training outing for the SW Junior Squad who had enjoyed a tough day on Saturday - I guess there would be quite a few snoozing on the minibus on the drive back east.

Thanks to the usual suspects who helped with all the on-the-day tasks and especially the non-competing helpers; Elsie Hargreaves, Sue Morton and Ruth Pullen.

Also thanks to those volunteers who waited until the end and collected controls.


Roger Hargreaves - Organiser


Penhale South

This year's Forest League event at Penhale was as good as ever with a very good turn-out despite the slightly inclement weather forecast. There was the added twist of some new, temporary lakes as a result of recent heavy rain!

Roger set some good courses ably assisted by Graham. My thanks go to all the willing volunteers who helped run the event including Sue Morton and Sue Boyt,who helped without enjoying a run.

Most of all, thank-you to those who travelled from 'up-country' to support our event.

Richard Bown - Organiser


Trelissick

Okay so the sun didn’t shine and the going was pretty muddy under foot, but the event at Trelissick on Sunday was a great start to KernO 2016 and the serious wind and rain held off until dark. Result!

Thank you as ever to the stalwart band of volunteers (both runners and non-runners Sue Morton and Judy Beadel) before, on and after the day who ensured things went pretty much like clockwork. From an Organiser’s point of view there were no dramas (other than a replacement plaster) for which I was very grateful and I hope everyone who came along had a great time.

Elizabeth Brunyee - Organiser


Polly Joke

We hope everyone enjoyed the courses set out at Polly Joke by Chris Moncaster this year. There were still murmurings at base camp of the Polly Jokes of the past when hail caused even the hardiest of orienteers to abandon their routes for shelter. This year only a couple of short heavy showers threatened to upset proceedings but between the cake cutting, wasp stingings, cake eating and SI box losing it seemed to go well. Thank you to all those who volunteered to help this event run smoothly including setting up and packing away, with special mention to Elsie Hargreaves on Registration who didn’t run and to the land owner who allowed us to use this interesting area for a little exploring.

Helen & Dan Alsop - Organisers


Lanhydrock Night

Thanks to all those who so willingly volunteered to collect controls, it was much appreciated. Thanks also to Matt Lewis and Kay Leaney of the National Trust.

The courses were basically the same as last year but run in reverse!

Having planned the Lanhydrock night event twice in succession, I'll let A N Other take over next year and be a bit more creative. The map will need revising as tree boxes and horse jumps change and there are one or two new footpaths in the parkland. The accuracy of the earth banks in the woods to south of the parkland needs checking also. I had contemplated (briefly) extending courses down to the river area, but common sense prevailed! Don't forget your whistle and spare torch for night events.

Dick and Beryl Smith


Hayle

I hope you all enjoyed your day out in the dunes as much as I enjoyed planning it.

Hayle South is the smaller and less complex part of the Hayle sand dune area, but which until recently lacked an up-to-date map. This was remedied earlier this year by Dave Peel which certainly made my job easier. I elected at an early stage to run the event at 1:7,500 in order to maximise the competitors experience, and in addition, I took the liberty of removing all the power lines which severely cluttered the southern part of the map. The end product was a very runnable, but relatively small footprint on which to work.

As with all sand dune events, you are not short of control sites, but at Hayle South, I was constrained by the crossing points in that we had one inland route through the caravan parks, and one coastal link, so I spent some time considering how best to run the courses.

Another constraint was that due to allowable course lengths, only Blue and Brown could visit the more complex northeast area with the option of some beach running. Notwithstanding this, in order to get the appropriate winning times particularly on Brown and Blue, I did use a lot of controls as I was limited by distance. As it turned out, Brown winning time was 54 minutes and Blue 57, so I guess the courses were about right.

Needless to say, some competitors found the courses very challenging, but that goes with the terrain!

Throughout my planning, I was ably supported by Nicholas Maxwell who did an excellent controlling job. However, both of us had a problem in that as the St Ives Urban event was the afternoon/evening before, I wasn’t able to get the control boxes until after dark on the Saturday evening which meant that they all had to go out on Sunday morning! Therefore, the plan was to put out all the stakes and kites on Saturday so that Nicholas could control them, followed by the boxes on Sunday. Although extra effort, it all worked out pretty well. Thanks goes to Roger Hargreaves who helped me with some of the boxes, Adele for setting up the yellow course and Gavin Henderson for the fence crossing and also organising the excellent parking field with toilet block – I think you’ll all agree that this made for a very friendly, compact “Assembly” area.

As Organiser, Adele would like to thank all those who helped on the day who together put on a great event, helped by some lovely autumn weather.

Phil and Adele Newall - Planner and Organiser


Davidstow Moor

My main concern as controller was the weather. With a week to go the forecast was not looking good and one starts to think of the options, even as far as cancellation. Who'd want to be out on the moor in a thunderstorm? In the end we had one of the best days even if there was a stiff wind. The clear conditions did mean that navigation was pretty straightforward. A little bit of mist would have made all the difference.

Arthur's courses may have seemed at first glance to be on the long side, but with little climb and good conditions underfoot, the results prove how well he judged things. The Blue course was particularly competitive. 16 out of the 18 runners were covered by just 12 minutes.

As this was the first use of the map there were obviously one or two details that will need to be addressed, in particular the contrast between brown features and the orange ground. What is clear on a computer screen may not look quite as good when printed and being read in the heat of competition. Any other feedback on the map is more than welcome.

Many thanks to Arthur for his planning and to Ivor Marshall for organising in his usual unflappable manner. Also to Elsie Hargreaves for looking after registration throughout.

Steve Beech - Controller

It gave me great pleasure to plan an event on my own home patch which I have run over many times in days gone by. The difficulty here is in planning the easy courses. We managed with the orange going round the airfield and the white round the bomb dumps and back. No one retired and all got round in reasonable time. I was glad that the ravine between Buttern Hill and Leskernick was on the map as it added a new dimension. There is more of the same if we extend the map to the south. The area does not present great technical difficulty, but it does provide good running all the way.

Comments about difficulty in seeing brown features on the map in the short grass area were made. This could be alleviated by showing all the area south of the road as rough open. Comments about north being slightly off need investigating.

Thanks to Steve for improving the planning and control collection, to Ivor for good organising and to those who collected controls.

Arthur Boyt - Planner

Hardhead

Hardhead Downs once again provided interesting orienteering and I hope everyone enjoyed their courses. Most people managed to get their run in before the rain started. Thanks must go to all the helpers who made it possible to run the event. In particular thanks to Elsie Hargreaves and Steve Eastley who did not run. Thanks also to the landowner of the parking field which is most pleasant.

Annabel Pring - Organiser

Idless

Thanks to you all for turning up - many from distant parts. I had planned some courses for a Summer Series event in August and when permissions were not forthcoming for the scheduled event at Hustyn I was able to change those into Sundays event. I am very well aware of the potential for bramble "attack" and believe me you went into some of the best areas. As the timber contractor is still working the brashings are getting a little worse in some of the better bits making them slightly less runnable.

It is difficult to get a Brown course of sufficient length without a trip round the woods three times and while Ben managed a run of 46 min I'm sure the rest of competitors were fairly happy with the distance/climb.

The conditions were rather windy so thanks to all the volunteers who braved the flexible Khyam tent and the provision of cars as anchors.

Thanks too to Steve Beech who controlled and Ivor Marshal who with his current injuries coped single handed.

Roger Hargreaves - Planner

It is thanks to Roger that we had an event to replace the one planned for Hustyn. With his experience and intimate knowledge of Idless, the short timescale was not going to be a problem, and my job as controller was not a difficult one (Roger's tags are perfect - he should patent them) and he'd picked all the best bits of forest.

We crunched the numbers and there was a certain amount of agonising over course lengths. Would you have appreciated a brown course of 12k (equivalent)? Probably not. On the whole the winning times on the other courses are reasonable and most people seemed to enjoy their runs despite the brambles

Thanks to everyone who stayed on to collect controls and pack away the tent in the wind.

Steve Beech - Controller

Mt Edgcumbe

Thanks to all those that came to compete at Mount Edgcumbe. Unfortunately I am unable to run at the moment but I hope you enjoyed John Moody's well planned courses. Although technically not a difficult area it is always more physical than than you think, but the views usually make up for this. I was especially glad that I was able to organise a spring like day for you, it always makes the day much more sociable and the tea tent was as always, a big hit, thanks to Jeannie and Richard Bown for organising.

I would especially like to thank those who volunteered to help run the event, whether it was half an hour on Results Download, or an hour on the Start or Registration, it is you along with the planner and controller who make these events happen. A special thanks to those non runners who volunteered namely Helen and Abbie Lockett who did a two hour shift on registration.

Behind the scenes I think it worth me thanking, on behalf of all the members, those who volunteer tirelessly to keep the club running and the events coming, so a big thank you to all on the Cornwall OC Committee.

Hope to see you at our next race on 29th March at Hustyns Wood.

As always if you have any feedback, please let us know.

Mark Lockett - Organiser

Penhale South event

Penhale is a great area for planning and organising. We centred the event in the touring park and tried to provide courses that combined the more open areas to the east with sand dunes along the coast and the park itself. Expert guidance was provided by our Controller, Roger Hargreaves, and we were supported well by many club members who helped to run the event. Sue Morton, Judy Beadel and Sue Boyt came to help even though they were not running. Thank you to all.

We were very pleased to see so many runners and we hope the event was up to expectation. Unfortunately we had to ‘recycle’ maps on some courses. We apologise for this and hope that all those who came had a good day.

Thank you again to all competitors and helpers.

Richard and Jeannie Bown - Planner & Organiser

Penhale South night event

Where were you all? Perhaps the experience of the caravans in November put you off. Maybe the inclement weather put you off. Maybe you had something better to do? Well, only 14 individuals and one pair took part.

It is true to say that the finishing rate was rather low. The courses were based on next weeks less technical courses with some alternative control sites added for "simplicity". Nevertheless, many people found the courses tough with one group of individual runners running out of time and as well as some retirements.

Thanks to Elsie Hargreaves for taking on the admin and Ian Raggett for joining with me to put out the controls. Thanks to Barry, Chris x2, Ian and Gavin for collecting controls.

Roger Hargreaves

Tremough night event

It was good to see so many people turning up to have a go at the first Kerno event of the year, including a couple of first-timers and I think most enjoyed the challenge of navigating around the Tremough campus.

This was the first time I'd planned courses in a semi-urban area, and while I was pleased to find plenty of options for control locations the courses did all end up being of fairly limited technical difficulty, and I hope people didn't end up running up and down the same paths too many times.

One of the problems with using this area is that the campus is still developing rapidly and there are constant changes on site. Roger Hargreaves mapped the campus only a few years ago and has updated the map more than once since, but when I started planning I still found a few changes and there have been more every time I've been there, including a new building which began to appear just a couple of weeks before the event. Then as I was putting out controls on the day of the event I discovered that a substantial area around one of the buildings had been fenced off, making one of the controls rather difficult to get to. Apparently the fence was due to some stone cladding falling off the side of the building a few days before.

The other issue I had with planning in slightly different terrain was which symbols to use for some of the control features. For example there was a suggestion that the symbol I'd used to show a canopy was actually for a fodder rack. I'm still not sure which would be the correct symbol for that but as everyone seemed to find their way around the courses easily enough it obviously wasn't a problem.

Even a small event such as this takes a fair amount of organisation, and many people were involved. Thanks to Vicki Sutcliffe from the university who ensured we had all the information we needed and got agreement for the event to go ahead from all interested parties on the campus, and to Simon Court for allowing us to use the gym area for registration and changing - much appreciated on a slightly windy and damp evening. Thanks also to Phil Newall for printing the maps, Barry Olds for setting up the SI and compiling results, Roger Hargreaves for sorting out all the equipment, Ian Ashton for campus liaison and help with the start, Hannah Jenkins and Elsie Hargreaves for registration and Barry, Roger and Phil Jenkins for collecting in the controls.

I hope we'll be able to run events at Tremough again and maybe next time persuade a few more students to participate.

Gavin Henderson

Lanhydrock Galoppen

The new, very popular, layout of cycle tracks in Hart Wood on the north-eastern part of the map unfortunately now renders this area unusable for orienteering on safety grounds. Consequently, with the restrictions imposed by the railway and river crossings and the public highway on the east of the map, together with numerous out of bounds areas, it is quite challenging to plan courses of sufficient length and the correct technical difficulty. I think my courses were rather light on technical difficulty but I am pleased to see that the winning times are reasonably in accordance with the guidelines, albeit perhaps a little fast.

It is unfortunate that we had the problem with the farming tenant concerning the fields adjoining the River Fowey – we were unaware that access is not allowed to this area. We know that at least one competitor managed to complete the route across these fields and another was turned back so, in the interests of fairness, it seems right to void leg 2-3 on the Blue course.

My thanks to Bryan for his constructive comments on my courses and to Graham for his organisation (and for his spell as sentry to keep runners out of the above-mentioned fields!).

Rod Allday - Planner

Inevitably, given that the large area to the north and east of the assembly area was not available to the Planner, all of the courses made extensive use of the dominant parkland at Lanhydrock. In addition, Rod sought to use the relatively small surrounding areas of more technical terrain for the Blue, Green and Brown courses in particular. Most finishers seemed happy with this mix; enjoying the fast running in pleasant December sun. Even with courses on the longer side, finishing times for many runners were also fast.

One issue only became apparent during the course of the event and primarily affected competitors on the Blue course. The area of open fields to the north of Control 197 (2nd control on the Blue course) was rightly declared Out of Bounds during the event after a discussion between the local farmer and the event organiser. It was not marked on the original map as OOB. As some competitors on the Blue course were then directed from 197 towards the footbridge over the River Fowey -and possibly away from their intended route - it has been decided that the leg from the 2nd control to the 3rd control on the Blue course will be omitted from the final times and results. Some earlier Blue course runners may have welcomed this guidance but did not get it!

Bryan Smith (Devon) - Controller

Many thanks to everyone who helped, particularly those volunteers who didn't run - Annabel Pring; Jenny Pring; Elsie Hargreaves; Beryl Smith; Richard Smith.

Graham Pring - Organiser

Tehidy Night

What a great night - full moon, dry, fun courses, log fires, good food and lovely company just what Night "O" should be!

The event comprised three line courses, on a big scale 1:5,000 map (except for Gavin Henderson whose local knowledge earned him a tiny 1:15,000 special map!), named Santa (Equivalent to Green), Rudolph (Jade) and Fairy (Orange), all run from the Newall's house in the middle of Tehidy forest. Competitors had to carry tinsel and a bell, and at control 233, another map segment sent the competitor to a different locality to pick up a balloon and chocolate which they had to get safely to the end of the course. "Most" competitors spotted the new map which gave them a 5 minutes bonus.

The results on the night were fairly true to form, with James Hargreaves blasting round Santa, Barry just pipping Roger on Rudolph, and Sara Dowler comfortably winning the Fairy.

Congratulations to everybody, especially our newcomers, particularly those from Wardell Armstrong (my company), including a lone Russian woman who got round the Fairy course all by herself!

Thanks to Santa's helpers: Ian Hargreaves, Elsie Hargreaves, Annabel Pring & Adele Newall.

Look forward to seeing you all at Tremough in January.

Father Christmas - aka Phil Newall

Craddock Moor

The system of checking orienteering courses is on the whole robust and efficient. Errors are fortunately comparatively rare, but two did occur at Craddock Moor. The mapped position of two controls did not coincide with the position of the kites on the ground. As planner, I am mortified, and have examined how this occurred.

It turns out that, as with many cases of human error, it was due to a chain of factors. I was supplied with a base-map which was up-dated to 2012 so far as features were concerned, but the magnetic meridians were still for 2001. I used this map to plan the event, and to tag the control sites. I sent a copy of the courses, based on this map, to Steve. He approved them (with minor modifications), and checked the tags.

Phil indicated that the maps would have to be submitted the week before the event, because of his work commitments. This put pressure on me to complete the maps. Without undue difficulty, I rotated the base-map to magnetic north for 2014, but OCAD9 would not allow me to rotate the course-planning file in its entirety. I was therefore obliged manually to transfer the positions of the 41 control-sites from the old file to a new one using the rotated base-map. In doing this, I misplaced the positions of controls 215 (Brown, Blue, Green) and 216 (Light Green, Orange). Although I looked at the maps for the individual courses, I failed to check them closely enough, and for this error I humbly apologize. I was in a hurry to send the maps to Phil. I sent them to Steve for final checking, but he was using OCAD10, which for some reason could not open my amended course-planning file, so this check was never made.

The result was that although the kites were in the correct (i.e. intended) positions, the circles for 215 and 216 on the maps issued to orienteers were in the wrong place, by about 110 and 150 metres respectively. I am sorry if this ruined people’s runs. It certainly ruined my day.

Ken George - Planner

A beautiful area; a beautiful day; and then we make those mistakes. Sackcloth & ashes for me and Ken.

I have at last wrestled OCAD into opening Ken's final map files but I'm not entirely sure that I would have spotted the changes even if I had managed to open them before the event. Ken is normally so very careful with his planning.

I do hope however that you enjoyed the rest of his efforts. I certainly felt that he had created interesting courses on one of our best areas. The weather conditions probably made them a bit more straightforward with such good visibility. Some days recently 50 metres was about as much as you could see.

You will see from the results that adjustments have been made to take account of the misplaced controls.

On Green, Blue & Brown everyone punched 215 and so only the time for the leg leading up to that control has been excluded. (Note that the control was repositioned during the event so not everyone was confused.)

On Light Green & Orange no-one found control 216 and so all the time between the previous control and the following control has been excluded.

Steve Beech - Controller

Acting as organiser for the first time can be quite daunting, but with help and guidance from those with years of experience (particularly Steve), and the willingness of club members to volunteer, everything came together smoothly and I even managed to have a run myself. Thank you all.

Also thanks to Truro School for letting us use their hut for registration and download. As it turned out the weather was lovely so a tent would have been OK.

We’re very grateful to the landowners - Duchy of Cornwall and Manor of Rosecraddoc - and St Cleer and District Commoners’ Association for permission to use this lovely area.

Ali White - Organiser

Trelissick

“As my first time as Organiser, I started working on arrangements for the Forest League Trelissick event with no small amount of trepidation. But I need not have feared despite the challenging task of finding helpers with so many committed elsewhere; the support from Richard as Planner and Barry as Controller, in particular, was just great and very reassuring. Emails R Us!

The sun shone brightly on the day, the helpers all arrived on queue and many were happy to volunteer for extra shifts and fill in any gaps on the rota. Thank you SO much to all of you and for those who realised how short of volunteers I was and came along just to help out and didn’t even run. Real dedication to the KernO cause which was very much appreciated.

And then it was all over .... until next time?!

Elizabeth Brunyee - Organiser

I hope everybody had a good run and enjoyed the views of the Fal estuary. The weather was wonderful and maybe almost too warm. The longer courses were restricted by livestock issues in the Pill Farm area, which reduced the potential area. Nevertheless that obliged me to send most people out to Roundwood quay and around the Park perimeter. This gave them the best views!

Thank you to Barry for his thoughts as Controller and to Elizabeth for organising.

Richard Bown - Planner

Lanhydrock 1

As befits an event with the theme of Alice Through the Looking Glass, things went a bit awry. A couple of controls were either missing or believed to be missing, so the legs which used those have been voided.

You should also be aware that the following competitors were using the mirror image version of the map:

Ken George, Steve Eastley, Peter Heywood, Bernard Pullen, Gavin Henderson, Ian Raggett, Ian Ashton, and all 4 of the Harrington family.

Will Hancock - Organiser

Polly Joke

This was my first attempt at Controlling and to be honest it was a walk in the park! Simon was the consummate professional, producing some excellent courses with the minimum of fuss in between his hectic work schedule. The only debate we had was surrounding the projected course lengths, which were based on previous events. My hunch was that the formula gave slightly too much length, but it is so hard to pin it down as you just dont know how quick an elite runner might turn up on the day! As it was no one of that ilk showed up, and so the courses appear long. Given the excellent weather we had I hope you enjoyed your slightly longer exploration of the dune and headland.

Aside from that issue my role was restricted to a pleasurable excursion to check the sites. Then the rain and storms came putting things on hold. It was impressive to see how much sand had moved in places, amplifying the reentrants etc. A map is always work in progress!

Anyway all that remains to be said is congratulations to Simon for delivering some great courses and to Roger and Elsie for ably organising. Thanks too to the National Trust for access. And finally great to see some new faces along, see you at the next one - Hustyn woods next Sunday.

Will Hancock - Controller

A great day weatherwise if a little breezy. I apologise for the absence of the toilet ---- it was delivered somewhere in the area but not to the site as arranged. We also had a problem with the signs in Cubert ----- some joker kept removing them!! So congratulations for finding the event at all. It was good to see some new families having a go, I hope you enjoyed the experience and we look forward to welcoming you again. Thanks to everyone who helped on the day, see you next week at Hustyn.

Elsie Hargreaves - Organiser

Mt Edgcumbe

Mount Edgcumbe is a well-known and much used venue, but like other locations it has changed significantly since the last map was drawn. Some of the woods are much more runnable, particularly the north-western slope. I re-mapped these woods, and discovered and used new features in them. I largely avoided the valley to the south of Mount Edgcumbe House, where the camellias are, preferring to put more controls on and around the plateau. The Brown course was intended to be quite challenging, using all of the terrain and including three climbs up to the plateau. Congratulations to Ben Chesters, who completed the 8.3 km in under 54 minutes.

Putting out the remoter controls on the Saturday was a pleasure. The weather was mild and calm, and I enjoyed watching the deer leaping about. Laying out the remainder on Sunday morning was a complete contrast; it was most unpleasant moving about on the plateau in driving rain. Thanks to Marie-Louise who helped me with this task, and indeed to Steve and John for their friendly co-operation throughout. I felt sorry for the competitors having to face the same wind and rain.

Ken George - Planner

It was very heartening to see so many people turning up despite the weather forecast. I hope you enjoyed Ken's courses despite the conditions. His solution to the problem of fitting the longer courses into the area was, I thought, quite elegant. I must apologise if anyone was thrown by the colour of the North lines on the map. Whilst carrying out the amendments Ken somehow managed to change the colour to red and unfortunately the files went to be printed uncorrected. (That will be fixed in time for the night event there in February.)

Many thanks to those of you who volunteered to go back out to collect controls. We were all packed away before it got too dim. It really does help when days are so short if competitors can run as early as possible.

Steve Beech - Controller

Penhale

Kerno were very pleased to include the Inter-Services Championship in this event. The Men’s teams ran a Black course and the Ladies teams ran the Brown, which was also part of the Galoppen. The Southern Champs was held at Penhale in April, so to be a bit different we ran this event from the Northern end of the dunes and used the area North of the military fence only. As often happens, the less technical courses defined the start and finish locations and other issues defined the car parking arrangements. The result was a fair distance to walk to and fro, but this must have been offset by the glorious views down the coast past the Bawden rocks (Man and his man) towards Godrevy and St Ives. The April event gave us an excellent, updated map to work with and a good set of run times to guide course lengths. Also, Ben Chesters, the planner on that occasion provided us with his courses and valuable advice on the good and bad areas. I feel that the winning times indicate that we were not too far out and I hope everyone enjoyed themselves. Alan Simpson, the controller, was very helpful , not only in checking courses etc, but especially in loading all the control sites onto GPS. With a map as good as the Penhale one, we can thoroughly recommend this approach as a guide to locating control sites. Jeannie, the Organiser, made everything flow smoothly with a willing band of helpers. Thank you all. I was very grateful for the help of Mark to put out the controls and collect them in. Graham Pring and James Hargreaves also helped with the collection. Without their help we would have been collecting in the dark!

Richard Bown - Planner

First I would like to thank all the volunteers who helped on Sunday, especially those lonely souls who sat down on the gate for an hour and also the non-running helpers: Sue Boyt, Will Hancock, Mark Bown, Hanne Kinnunen, Sue Morton, and Alan Simpson's partner Annie. Secondly all those who turned up early to help with tents and stayed at the end to help again with both tents and the gathering and sorting of equipment. Fortunately the weather was kind to most of us. I hope those helping towards the end didn’t suffer too much in the rain. We enjoyed having the inter services teams there and hope we can host them again in the future. I hope you all enjoyed the day.

Jeannie Bown - Organiser

Gaining permission to use Penhale has become harder and more expensive since the change of ownership, and there was only one vehicular way in to the area used – through that mighty metal gate! Richard and Jeannie Bown had to pull out all the stops to make this event happen, and they and KERNO can be proud of a very successful outcome. It was a pleasure to work with them, ably assisted by their son Mark, who came down from Bath especially for the occasion. It was also a pleasure to welcome the Inter Service competitors, who certainly appreciated the challenge of this magnificent area.

Alan Simpson (Devon OC) - Controller

Hayle South

This part of Hayle Towans has not been used by the club in anger for many years with the result that the map was badly in need of an update. Earlier this year, several club members assisted in this process to produce a reasonably good map of the western part of the old map, the Common Towans area. Unfortunately, this was not large enough to stage a Forest league event in its own right, so a compromise was reached whereby the “new” part was stitched onto the “old” part (some of you may have noticed the purple line down the map?). This had the problem that the eastern part of the map was a little out of date, but I made sure that the features I chose were as obvious as possible. Another difficulty of the map was ensuring a good flow for competitors, particularly on the longer courses. Thanks to Gavin here for getting all the permissions which allowed us to cross Beachside Caravan Park and run through St Ives Bay Holiday Park to the northeast which meant that I could get the right distance in for Blue and Brown. As with many of our sand dune areas, scale is an issue in that most competitors struggle to read 1:10,000, so I took the decision to run the courses at 1:7,500 which I think was well received.

With regards course lengths, finishing times seemed to be long, although the course lengths and climbs were well within guidance – is the area particularly tough? Luckily, although some people were out for a long time, the beautiful weather helped to ensure generally a very positive feedback, albeit that competitor numbers were a little low.

From an organisational standpoint, thanks to all who helped as this was very much a team effort.

Phil Newall - Planner

Penhale Southern Championships

I consider myself very fortunate to have now planned three major events at Penhale – the 2005 British Championships, Day 2 of the 2010 Tamar Triple, and this year’s Southern Championships. Penhale is a wonderful area on which to plan as it offers great variety with its areas of large dunes, the flatter vague areas to the south, and the unique coastal slope. Amongst these areas, there are a huge number of technical control sites. These factors combined mean that it could be considered that planning the TD5 courses is a relatively easy process. However, there are two key constraints which make life challenging; namely the numerous areas which are out-of-bounds for environmental reasons (it’s vital that courses avoid these to ensure future use of the dunes), and the upgrading of the fence dividing the area into two parts to a stockproof structure which now requires crossing points.

The less technical courses present a different set of challenges, as the large number of paths in the area surrounding Perran Sands can make the area technical, even on a TD1 or 2 course. It is, therefore, important to ensure that these courses use only the clearest paths, and to have taped routes where the labyrinth of paths becomes very detailed or the paths less clear.

I aimed to ensure that all the technical courses made use of the aforementioned terrain types available at Penhale, as well as providing a variety of leg lengths and changes in direction – and all based around the constraints mentioned above. On the basis of the comments I was hearing in the finish area, it seems that I achieved this and that the courses were generally well received.

The final courses, and the number of courses, used for the event were changed on a number of occasions. The original event was planned to be a ‘full’ grade A event with elite courses, spectator controls, commentary etc as, at that stage, the event had been given a number of designations by British Orienteering and a relatively large attendance was anticipated. Unfortunately, despite Penhale being one of the best areas in the country, it later transpired these designations were not applied to the event. The consequence of this was that fewer people were willing to make the journey to Cornwall. Therefore, to make the event viable, it was necessary to reduce the scale of the event. Unfortunately, the last of these alterations had to be made during a period of significant turmoil within the Chesters family, for reasons that most of you will be fully aware of. However, despite these issues, I was able to suitably adjust the courses, and I hope you found them enjoyable and challenging, and that you felt your trip to Cornwall was worthwhile.

Early in the afternoon of the event, I began my journey to Portugal for the World Schools Championships, where I was coaching the Senior Men’s Select Team. As a consequence, I wasn’t around to co-ordinate or help with the control collection. So, I must say a big thank you to all those who helped with this task. Thanks also to Roger Hargreaves for his assistance with control hanging, and to Ray Collins for his advice as controller. Thanks also to The Bowns for their organisation and also to the many helpers who ensured the event ran smoothly. Finally, thanks to you, the competitors, for your many kind comments about the courses, and for making the trip to Penhale.

Finally, the following quote has been passed to me, which I feel sums up a successful weekend in Cornwall:

“I might have been a grumpy old git when I finished my course on Sunday – so I should just say that I really enjoyed the weekend. I thought St Ives was fab, and Penhale never ceases to give me serious o-problems.” (Anon – 14/04/13)

Ben Chesters (Sarum) - Planner

When asked to be the event controller I jumped at the opportunity to be part of the event team at one of the best orienteering areas in England. Alas, the vast majority of orienteers obviously felt it was too far to travel to and the final entry number fell a long way short of that originally expected.

Regional Championships are planned with the winners’ times being the most important aspect and on the courses where the best athletes competed these winning times were spot on. The winning time on the M21 for instance is 85-95 minutes whilst for the majority of courses winning times are in the region of 55-70 minutes. On the majority of courses where the best runners did not compete winning times were on the long side reflecting the absence of these runners.

Putting the above information together instead of the full range of age classes we decided to base the event on the guidelines for under 500 competitors with just a limited range of courses: The idea being to have more runners per course with greater competition. Ultimately this, I feel, made the older ladies on all the courses run too far and for too long for which I must apologise.

Ben planned excellent courses with many twists and turns and used a plethora of small control features, testing your navigation skills to the limit. I found it very interesting to watch a top M50 charge along in perfect control, overtaking other runners who were completely flummoxed by the terrain. There was a moan about “too many controls making it more like a middle race” but, in my view, you pick up your map and navigate around the course set. Perhaps too many controls take away route choice but at Penhale is this such a problem as the straight route is often best (and shorter).

The organisation seemed to run very smoothly and the Yurt made an interesting download point… I am glad I do not have to live in one during a Mongolian winter, however. Well done Jeanie.

Thank YOU for coming. I hope you enjoyed your course and felt satisfaction from successfully competing at Penhale Sands.

Ray Collins (Walton Chasers and SPLOT) - Controller


Thank you to all those competitors who braved the Cornish weather and ran at Penhale. Ben Chesters had set some challenging courses making full use of the area. At 8 am the prospects for the day were looking interesting with a full gale and refreshing rain. Our attempts to put up tents failed but fortunately Perran Sands Holiday Park came to our rescue and gave us the use of a yurt for the day. The problems made us a little late in setting up, but racing went ahead on time. As the day progressed the wind eased and the sun came out.

We would like to thank all those Kerno competitors who helped. Other Kerno members not entered also helped: Sue Morton, Lily Middleton, Hilary Eastley and Ian Raggett. A special thank you goes to Ivor Marshall who built the fence crossings. Devon OC gave us invaluable support with equipment, especially controls and the SI. Alan Simpson and Graham Dugdale managed the SI with Barry Olds all day. Devon members also delivered and collected equipment. Their help is fully appreciated. Thank you to the BOK members who collected in controls and saved us from an even longer evening in the dunes. We also thank the ATC for managing the car parking arrangements.

For us it was a learning experience ably supported by Roger Hargreaves, Christine Vince, Ben Chesters and Ray Collins.

I hope you had a good weekend in Cornwall!

Richard and Jeannie Bown - Organisers

St Ives Urban (13/04/13) and Mexico Towans warm up

Knowing St Ives well, I was very much looking forward to planning this event and giving our visitors from ‘up country’ a tour around this pretty town. I had hoped for good weather so that the town would be seen at its best and in its famous light which has inspired so many artists. Of course, being Cornwall it was not to be and, although I had a miserable time in the rain placing controls (thanks to Scott Collier for his invaluable assistance with this) at least the rain eased off for most of the runners. To stage this event on a Saturday evening was taking a bit of a risk as the town is always busy and on a sunny evening there would have been many more people on the streets – so at least the rain helped in that respect.

It was my first venture into planning a proper urban event and I am indebted to Roger for his expert guidance in this. Although the map was printed at A4 size there was limited scope in the planning as about 40% of the map is sea. Consequently the retracing of steps was unavoidable – and speaking of steps, there were rather a lot weren’t there! I realise that the finish on courses 1-4 was a bit tough – but be thankful that on Roger’s advice I had moved it lower down the hill than its original location. I wanted to give options of running across the beach but the state of the tide was not ideal for this – had the tide been lower I could have placed controls on Smeaton’s Pier to give a run across the harbour sands. However I note that some runners did take the beach option across Porth Gwidden and Porthmeor beaches. The adoption of a second start and finish enabled us to accommodate junior courses and gave the older ladies a less hilly run than the other competitors. It placed an additional strain on the Organiser’s manpower requirements but Gavin took it all in his stride.

We were pleased that the event was included in the SEOUL series, which greatly boosted the entry numbers and we are very appreciative that so many runners made the journey into the far southwest.

Rod Allday - Planner

We have to thank Scott Collier for the seed being planted for the possibility of a St Ives urban event. As it happened he was busy with his studies and based somewhat remotely from the far SW so I volunteered to take on the mapping role. Changes to the map continued until the moment it had to be sent to Hassell and Lucking for printing.

So we needed a Planner and Rod Allday stepped forward. Gavin Henderson was persuaded to take on the Organiser role. Initially, we decided not to cater for the younger competitor but by a quirk of the way I had set up the Fabian structure I found we had entries – so could we fit them in? The more trafficked roads were the problem so we wondered if we could make a second start work. The park and the harbour seemed possibilities and the logistics of people arriving and departing gave the park as the best option for the finish for this group of entrants.

In order to get the winning times of the order of 2 or 3 times a sprint time we tried many options for the longest course. Once we had that then the other courses followed. It was inevitable that the courses criss-crossed the town and it was entertaining to watch the to-ing and fro-ing. Route choice, too, was influenced as much as by climb as complexity of navigation. The run across the beach – some said it had to be done – but I guess it was probably slower but so tempting.

I heard many positive comments about St Ives as a venue and we have to thank numerous “official” bodies for their cooperation. KERNO excelled in support of the weekends events – thanks to the membership.

Roger Hargreaves - Controller


It was great to see so many people turning up for this first ever urban race in St Ives despite the wind and rain during the afternoon. There were a few challenges in organising for over 200 people to be running around a town with rather limited access over a couple of hours but the event on Saturday evening was a success thanks to Rod's careful course planning and with the help of many people.

The event wouldn't have been possible without the support of St Ives Town Council and was made much easier thanks to Cathy Care of Carrick Leisure who arranged for us to be able to use the St Ives Leisure Centre. Thanks also to Craig Taylor from Cornwall Council who made sure we had space for the main start in the Park Avenue car park.

I'm very grateful to all the Kerno club members who agreed to help so willingly and made everything run smoothly, especially those who had little time to fit in their own run. Special thanks to those who came and helped even though they didn't compete: Scott Collier, Ian Raggett and Elsie Hargreaves for doing everything necessary to make sure the juniors and ultra veteran women were able to start and finish safely down by the harbour, Hilary Eastley for dealing with enquiries and helping at the start, Pauline Olds for helping with enquiries and Barry Olds who did his usual superb job of setting up and running the SI system including re-programming a start box at the last minute so people could start on time.

Thank you also for the patience and good humour of those early starters who confusingly encountered clocks showing several different times.

Finally a big thank you to Roger Hargreaves who was not only the controller but also produced the map and made sure everything was in place for the event to happen.

Gavin Henderson - Organiser


Mexico Towans Warm Up

What a difference 24 hours make. For those lucky enough to be in Cornwall on Friday catching some welcome Spring sun it was just too good to last! By the time we had the signs out, tent up and controls hung we were all soaked and wondering who would be brave enough to venture out. True to form orienteers started turning up early and raring to get out on the Dunes. As the day progressed they kept coming even if some were heard to be questioning their sanity as they ventured out into the wind and rain.

The event ended with 80+ hardened souls finding the draw of Mexico Towans greater then the Cafes of St Ives. An apology first to those of you who reported “D” was not there, yes you were right, it was in a depression 60m South (Mea Culpa) and was repositioned shortly after. For those who did find it and couldn’t make the Brown Wiggly things fit, you weren’t loosing your marbles.

I would like to thank the owners of Beach Side and Sandy Acres camp sites as well as Natural England for allowing access to Mexico Towans. To Phil and Adele Newall for checking the sites to the East (D was all down to me!) And most of all to Tristan, Sean and Holly who were out from 7am to 7pm and didn’t complain once; I couldn’t have done it without you.

Simon Freer - Organiser/Planner

Dunmere (24/03/13

Saturday evening putting out a few early road signs trying to get ahead with the organising…. Didn’t expect to have a police car pull up behind me…. I thought it was OK to put out road signs. Did they really want to speak to me, Yes it appeared so. I turned to speak to the officer suddenly realising I had a heavy metal lump hammer in hand! Not the best idea when one is just about to say “Good Evening officer”. Trying to look innocent (I was) I surreptitiously opened the passenger door and threw the “weapon” in. A lovely PC then said “Is everything OK, have you broken down, can I be of assistance?”! It was so kind and helpful.

The organising on the day was made similarly easy by people being very kind and helpful. Thank you to all those who did a duty and to the team of as one member put it “wonderful wood elves” who put up and took down the tents with such ease.

Thanks to Tim and Ken for planning and controlling giving everyone a “real” Dunmere experience. They had a difficult job with all the recent forestry work and chose convenient areas for the registration, start and finish for us all to enjoy.

Hope you all had a good last forest league event of the season. Enjoy the summer series.

Tandy Brumby - Organiser

Polly Joke (13/03/2013)

Planning at Polly Joke gives several options on areas to use - there are Kelsey Head, The Kelseys, Cubert Common and the Dunes. Clearly,all courses which need a TD5 experience have to go to the Dunes. As a planner who didn't want to carry the kit and place it a long way out I decided not to use Kelsey Head. So the controls in the Dunes were plentiful, the ones on the Kelseys had to be in the marram grass areas and the ones on the Common had to make use of the best features there. It is only when you come to place controls that you find that the map might have a bit more detail. We'll see if that can be improved next time!

The weather! Well, at 4pm on Friday as the first controls went out it was raining hard. 2 hours later when the last one of the first batch was in place it was still raining hard. The pole bag had to be drained of water before I could put it back in the car. Saturday morning was better - just occasional light rain. All ready to go by 1030. Early runners had a reasonable window but in the middle of the session there was an explosion of hailstones - the Tea Tent took off - 4 people anchored each corner. Competitors out on the course suffered it seems. Some sheltered, some retired and some carried on. Brave stuff. Then the sun came out and collecting controls was quite warm work.

Apologies to anyone on the Orange course who were deceived by an erroneous set of control descriptions - mea culpa. Otherwise courses seem to have been well received - ably controlled by Barry. Thanks to first-timer Helen Donovan for taking on the role of Organiser. There is so much to take in and she coped very well. Lastly thanks to the owners of Higher Moor - our Assembly area - who responded magnificently to our request to park there - and they didn't quite know what it was all about. The weather left one of the paddock entrances very muddy after all the cars had left.

Roger Hargreaves (Planner)


Thank you to everyone who came to Polly Joke on Saturday! We had all the seasons in one day and the hail was something to behold, well done to those who found shelter out on their runs (even if it was a map over your head!) Thank you to John & Sue Dennett for the use of their fields and facilities. Finally, a very special thank you to everyone who helped out at the event, you made my first time as Organiser easier than I had anticipated!

HelenDonovan (Organiser)


Cookworthy (24/02/2013)

When asked if I would like to plan the Kerno Gallopen at Cookworthy I was more than happy to take on the challenge. Cookworthy seemed to have a bad reputation after the mud of the JK2010 and the midges of last year's Tamar Triple. I've always thought it was an excellent forest, not technical but you certainly have to keep your wits about you for fast and efficient orienteering. The priorities for me in the early stages were trying to find an area for the yellow course. My first plan turned out to be an almost exact reverse of last years Tamar Triple, so it was back to the drawing board. I was happier with my second plan although worried about the large pools of water around 199 and the ride between 200 - 201. I even did a bit of gardening around 199 to help with the drainage. I needn't have worried as the two weeks before the event turned dry and the forest for the most part dried out nicely (compared to what it was like on my first visit).

For the technical courses I tried to use a completely new set of controls sites, use the best areas of the forest, have a variety of leg lengths and frequent direction changes. You, the competitors, will have to be the judge of whether I succeeded or not.

Two weeks before the event I ran the full Brown course and using a chest mounted GoPro camera and experimented with a timelapse of my run you can see the results on YouTube. I also took a number of pictures on the day which can be seen here.

I would like to thank Nicholas Maxwell (Devon) for his help and advice whilst controlling the event. Kerno's army of volunteers as usual rose to the occasion, from registration, the start to control collecting and breaking down the event everything seemed to run very smoothly. Finally thank you to all those who came and competed, if you would like to give any feedback on any of the courses I would love to hear from you.

Mark Lockett (Planner)

marklucylockett@gmail.com


An event at Cookworthy which was relatively dry underfoot - the old railway line excepted. Yes, you could find puddles and mud if you wanted to - and some did - but compared to a month ago it was desert like - well almost if you include the winter sun we had.

Mark's courses went down well and there was not a lot for me to add as controller. I think competitors agreed that there are a lot of nice areas of forest and challenge. Mark did his best to keep you out of the tougher areas. Well done to the yellow competitors for negotiating the rougher terrain in the early part of their course.

Thanks to Peter and the KERNO support team which ensured the whole event ran smoothly.

Nicholas Maxwell (Controller)



The event was a great success. Mark's courses were very well received and a good turnout for our Galoppen with 118 competitors.

My thanks to all the helpers especially the following who helped, but did not compete – Hilary Eastley, Pauline Olds, Arthur Boyt & Sue Morton.

FOUND: One thumb compass – Model Moss 22. If this is yours please email me – peter.morton2@virgin.net

Peter Morton (Organiser)



Duchy College (02/02/2013)

First, thanks to Duchy College for allowing us to use the area, in particular, Ryan Lucas, who was my contact/facilitator for the event. The use of the Sports Hall entrance for registration/gathering greatly enhanced the event.

The weather gods presented us with a very welcome dry and clear night – hooray! Phil did a great job on double-siding the maps and helped with control collecting as did Will and Sue – thanks. Beryl helped with the control hanging (finished just after 4.30pm) and was invaluable at registration. Thanks to Barry for the computer set-up.

The area is surprisingly restricted when you take into account field and stream crossing points and the Equine area being largely out of bounds. The area around the lake/pond is confusing at night, but I was loathe to use it because of the sogginess around it and the 'keep out' notices. Even so, there were some simple mistakes made on the easier controls.

The use of 2 maps with different scales (blame Arthur, who did this on a previous event here) enabled the control circles to be more visible in the buildings area. Had I access to the 1:2500 map, you would also have had some micro-O.

This was my first use of the new control set-up and I am amazed at how much easier it is to carry a large number (ie all) of them around. Thanks to all involved in setting this up.

The Royal Inn at Horsebridge (in Devon!) proved a welcome after-event venue – excellent.

See you at Tehidy?

Dick and Beryl Smith



Trelissick (26/01/2013)

What a great event! This one was planned on paper about a month ago, but unfortunately, due to my usual rather crazy travelling lifestyle, I wasn't planning to get back from Burkina Faso until Saturday lunchtime! Needless to say, with flight delays at the African end, snow problems in Paris and London, and the M4 closed due to an accident, I didn't get to Trelissick until 4.15pm!

However, we had already arranged that Adele would put out the Round Wood controls, and therefore we just had enough time to put the rest of the course out ready for a 6pm start. Unfortunately by now, the rain had started and I really thought that this was the promised 'heavy' rain that was forecast for Saturday night. Amazingly, lots of people turned up and it was great to see such high spirits on such a horrible night.

Luckily for everyone, the rain stopped and most people had a fairly dry run, albeit VERY muddy!

Feedback on the event was very positive and I think everyone enjoyed it (apart from control 206 – may be a little difficult?) – the idea was to let people have fun and not to make it too difficult.

Thanks to everyone who helped on the night, Adele for doing all the organisation bit, and especially those who got controls in at the end to allow us all to be in the pub by 8.30pm.

This is how Night 'O' should be – fun, with a pub at the end of it!

See all of you at the Duchy College night event next Saturday?

Phil & Adele Newall



Lanhydrock (20/01/2013)

We were very lucky with the clear, cold dry weather on Sunday. There was a good turnout and Lanhydrock is always popular. Thanks to all who helped and got very cold, particularly those who helped and did not also run. These were Arthur Boyt, Adele Newall and Hilary Eastley.

Annabel Pring (Organiser)



Tremough (05/01/2013)

Thanks to everyone for coming and trying the new map. I think everyone appreciated that. Thanks too to Elsie for helping to put out controls and run registration for the event. Also Pauline Olds who stepped in to handle the SI download. It was very unexpected that there were injuries resulting from trips - I trust healing will be rapid.

Roger Hargreaves (Organiser)



Hardhead Downs (16/12/2012)

We were really lucky with a sunny Sunday, making a change from all this rain. Thank you very much to all my helpers who did a fantastic job, a few ended up doing longer shifts than I intended but they didn't complain which I am grateful for! A special thanks to Elsie Hargreaves for helping to put up tents in the morning, doing a double shift on registration and picking up at the end without getting a run in. Also Phil and Adele for doing the car parking & collecting money. It was a really good turnout with lots of new faces, hopefully you all enjoyed yourselves and will come back again. Ian did a really good job as Planner - it was his first time, well done. Also Chris for his role as stand in Controller - and Dick Smith for doing the task up to that point. Finally a big thank you to Mr and Mrs Lane the owners of the field, for giving permission to park in; it worked really well.

Ivor Marshall (Organiser)



Craddock Moor (28/10/2012)

I hope everyone enjoyed the event. John put together some interesting courses making good use of the best parts of the area. Craddock Moor has many ancient monuments and numerous mine- working which add up to a complex area with interest for all. Thank you to Steve for his organisation and to all the helpers who make events possible. We look forward to the next event at Hayle in November.

Richard Bown (Controller)

The weather was a little disappointing after the beautiful day on the Saturday, but at least the rain wasn't relentless which it sometimes is on this exposed area. My thanks go to all the helpers, and in particular Sue Morton, Jenny Barclay and Arthur Boyt for helping without having a run. The permissions of the Duchy of Cornwall, the Manor of Rosecraddoc and the St Cleer and District Commoners, which allow us to use this superb area for orienteering, are much appreciated.

Steve Beech (Organiser)




Looe Street Race (16/06/2012)

Congratulations to Steve Edmonds who found 29 controls within the time limit and Shane Ohly, who found all 30 controls but was just over one minute late returning. Congratulations also to Helen Donovan, the leading lady. All 3 get prizes multi-functional headwear donated by Buff. This is the 3rd time we have used the same map and control locations for a score event around the streets of Looe. Ken George planned it originally and he and his wife got thoroughly soaked setting out the controls last year. History almost repeated itself this Saturday when I got soaked in a downpour setting out the last few controls. I think the downpour might have contributed to the fairly small turn-out of 22 entries. Many thanks to Cornwall Orienteering Club for agreeing to donate the proceeds from the event to Ellie's Haven, a Looe-based charity building a holiday retreat for families with children suffering long-term and life-limiting illnesses.

Peter Heywood